


Mycological Mishaps

by Eggling



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:02:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29429262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eggling/pseuds/Eggling
Summary: “So...”“So we’re a little – ah – a little early, for the restaurant to be open.”“An’ how early are we?”“Mm – well - about eighty million years, I should think.”In which the Doctor and Jamie fail in finding a restaurant, succeed in finding mushrooms, and don't quite have a romantic day out.
Relationships: Second Doctor/Jamie McCrimmon
Kudos: 10





	Mycological Mishaps

**Author's Note:**

> on [tumblr](https://the--highlanders.tumblr.com/post/643100865079672832/mycological-mishaps).

“Just you wait.” The Doctor was trailing behind by a few metres, far enough that Jamie lost sight of him when the track turned a sharp corner, but he had kept up a happy chatter ever since they had left the TARDIS. “There’s this restaurant – does the most wonderful spicy rice, you know. It’ll warm us right up, that’s for sure.”

Grumbling to himself, Jamie clutched at his upper arms more tightly, digging his fingers in until he could feel his bones. A drizzle had set in over the forest, somehow all the more chilling for its softness. It had long since soaked through his shirt and worked its way into his skin, turning it cold and clammy no matter how much he stomped his feet and rubbed his hands against his arms as he walked. “Aye, I’ll need it,” he mumbled, more to himself than to the Doctor. “’Spose it would’ve been too much to ask for ye tae land the TARDIS right outside the front door.”

“She doesn’t like landing in this century,” the Doctor protested. “They’ve just discovered time travel, you know – lots of nasty particles floating around. A sort of time-ship junk food, and, ah – the TARDIS does like to keep in shape, you know.”

Jamie shook his head. Four years of travelling with the Doctor had not brought him any closer to figuring out when he was lying about the TARDIS. “Aye, ‘course.”

“So she chose to land as far away from people as was reasonable. Oh, look!” Veering sharply away from the path, he turned to wade his way through a clump of bracken, struggling to lift his legs over the thick, grasping strands. His eyes were fixed on something, and Jamie craned his neck to see further into the forest, wondering just what had caught his eye. It could have been anything, he thought. The forest was so full of natural minutiae to distract the Doctor. It was a wonder they had made it so far without him stopping for something. But the Doctor had barely wandered more than a few metres before he was pointing, calling to Jamie over his shoulder. “Conks!”

“Eh?” Jamie made as if to wade into the bracken himself, but paused, staring back at the dripping fronds. Perhaps it was best to stick to the path, for the sake of not scratching his already-frozen knees. “Conks?” he called over instead.

“Conks!” the Doctor repeated happily, like Jamie ought to know exactly what he was talking about. When he turned to see Jamie’s blank expression, his shoulders slumped, betraying his sigh. “Bracket mushrooms,” he tried instead. “The, ah, the spore producer – the woody part, you see – it’s called the conk.”

Sure enough, the tree he was standing beside was riddled with mushrooms, great swathes of them running up and down its thick trunk. A small creature could surely use them as a staircase to the very top of the tree. The sight was so disconcertingly Earth-like that Jamie had to blink at it for a moment, searching for a flash of luminescence or a funny shape or something else _wrong_ to remind himself that they were on an alien planet. But the most alien thing in sight was the Doctor, tramping back through the bracken to stumble out onto the path, the lower legs of his trousers darkened with water and his hems muddied. He did not seem to notice, simply linking his arm through Jamie’s and carrying on through the forest.

“How charming,” he said, shaking his head. “Something of an endangered species by now, that one. They don’t like the time pollution either. Rather rare to see them covering a tree like that.”

Humming idly, Jamie nodded along with him. Now that the Doctor had pointed them out, he could not help but see mushrooms sprouting out of almost every tree around them. Most of the growths were all but identical to the ones that had caught the Doctor’s attention, dark and fleshy and fat. It could be his untrained eye, he supposed, not seeing the difference between the types of mushroom. Or the people in the nearby city might be trying to bring the rare ones back. They had bumped into that sort of thing often enough, in their travels. He ought to ask, if they ever ran across anyone else in the forest. It was the sort of thing the Doctor would like to hear about.

Not that they stood much chance of running across someone, if they carried on as they had been. The forest was alight with activity, chirping creatures and rustling plants and the incessant dripping of rain from every surface, but it was filled with the sort of heavy silence that came only from total isolation. There was no far-off chatter, no distant rumble of traffic, no acrid tang of fuel or earthy scent of tame beasts. Just the pleasant loneliness he had come to associate with planets that were empty of people.

“Are we far from the city?” he asked. It would be just like the Doctor to land them miles away and have them tramp through the forest for hours, all for the sake of getting to a favourite restaurant. “We’ve come a fair way already.”

“Oh, not too far at all, I should say.” The Doctor glanced up at the sky, tilting his head this way and that, like a cat trying to pin down a sound. “Close enough that we should make it there before it rains.”

Jamie grimaced. “Isn’t this drizzle enough?”

“Oh, no. No, there’s bound to be -” Opening his mouth a little, the Doctor drew in a sharp, sudden breath. He seemed to hold the air there for a moment, weighing it up, then breathed it out. “A few millimetres of rain, quite soon.”

“I hope ye brought an umbrella.”

“Oh – ah -” An improbable series of clangs, rustles, and rattles issued from the Doctor’s coat as he rummaged through his pockets. He leant over, reaching deep inside one until his arm had almost completely vanished. The outside of his coat did not even bulge with the motion, and Jamie bit the inside of his cheek, muffling an uneasy laugh. The inside of the TARDIS was natural enough to him, by now, but he was sure he would never grow used to the way the Doctor could disappear into his own pockets. “No,” the Doctor said at last, straightening up and shaking out the fresh wrinkles in his coat. “No, I didn’t.” He said it confidently, like he had meant to leave the thing behind, apparently forgetting that he had been digging around for it moments ago.

Tightening his grip on his own arms, Jamie hunched his shoulders against the thought of rain. “So we’re gonnae get wet.”

“Oh, no, we’ll be quite alright in the restaurant.” The Doctor squeezed Jamie’s arm against his side. “It’ll be, ah – quite romantic, I’d say.”

“Don’t you start.” Jamie let go of his own arm to bat at the Doctor’s hand, but did not move away afterwards, pressing down to push his fingers in between the Doctor’s. He glanced up at the sky himself, taking in the dark clouds gathering under the lighter ones above them. “Are ye sure we’re close tae the city?”

“Yes, of course – oh!” Pulling his hand out from beneath Jamie’s, the Doctor pointed to a soft rise ahead of them. “We ought to be able to see it from up there.” He dragged Jamie onwards, stumbling over the fallen sticks that littered the path in his haste. “Yes, that ought to be high enough to see the taller buildings.”

As they drew closer, Jamie realised that the slope was instead a crag of rock, sticking out from the ragged cliff’s edge at a dizzying angle. Moss and trees had taken root in the thin layer of dirt that coated its surface, disguising it as an odd jut of land. The Doctor strode onto it with all the confidence and pride of some heroic explorer, and Jamie followed more dubiously, unable to take his eyes away from the ground dropping away beneath him. But the Doctor faltered as he reached the top, his grip on Jamie’s arm slackening, like he did not want him to see what he had found. Jamie pushed himself up alongside him anyway, his fears forgotten in his curiosity, and he rested his hands over the Doctor’s hips as he scanned the expanse of treetops below.

“There’s no city,” he said flatly.

“Ah – no.” The Doctor’s hands were twisting together, his lower lip worried between his teeth. “No, there isn’t.”

They were probably on the wrong side of the planet, Jamie thought. Unless -

The quietness over the whole place. The mushrooms that ought to have died out by now.

It had been a little obvious. He should really have figured it out sooner.

“An’ where should we be?” he asked.

“In the middle of it.” The Doctor sounded so resigned. He knew perfectly well what had happened – and more importantly, he knew that Jamie understood, too. “We’re in precisely the right spot. The TARDIS didn’t land us so far away after all.”

“So...”

“So we’re a little – ah – a little early, for the restaurant to be open.”

He had been so terribly silly, expecting the Doctor to get things right this time. Just because the Time Lords had given him some new remote control gadget. The Doctor’s sense of direction was at fault just as much as the TARDIS itself. “An’ how early are we?”

“Mm – well -” Licking the tip of one finger, the Doctor held it up in the air, like he was testing the direction of the wind. “About eighty million years, I should think.”

Jamie’s grumble of frustration – only half-joking – was drowned out by a far lower rumble of thunder, rolling off the mountains and resounding through the valley that cradled the forest. “Let me guess, we won’t get back tae the TARDIS before the rain comes.”

“No. No, I’m afraid not.”

Wrapping his arm around the Doctor’s shoulders, Jamie pressed him close against his side. “We’ll just have tae wait it out.”

The Doctor glanced up at him. “Wait it out?”

“Aye, ye know – sit under a tree or somethin’, until it passes.”

Dubiousness was still written across the Doctor’s face. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather head back to the TARDIS and try somewhere else?”

Jamie snorted. “Somewhere else’ll only end up worse.”

The trees around them were something like pines, their trunks tall and straight and branchless until almost the very top. They were already sodden from the mist and the drizzle, their leaves bent over and the frayed edges of their soft bark clumped together. Perhaps it would be better to make for the TARDIS after all, Jamie thought, and accept that the storm would roll in over them no matter what they did. He wandered from tree to tree aimlessly, patting each in turn, as if one of them might turn into something that would give them a sliver more shelter.

His hand slammed down onto something soft and squishy, not the solid bark of a tree.

He leant back, hand clutched to his chest like he had touched something poisonous. But when he looked down, he realised it had only been one of the mushrooms, sticking out from the side of the tree. It might have been poisonous, he supposed, for all he knew, but more importantly it had sheltered a half-moon of dry ground. It was broad enough for two, and the mushroom was just high enough that someone could sit comfortably beneath it, and he dropped down with a huff of relief.

“We can sit here,” he said, nestling himself back against the trunk. The Doctor was frowning at him, but he crawled in beside him anyway. “We can at least rest for a wee while. I’m fair tired.” Walking had dulled the ache in the soles of his feet, but sitting had awoken the feeling, and he wondered if he would even be able to stand by the time the thunderstorm had passed. His skin had grown clammier with sweat, and he rubbed his hands together, huffing out his warm breath onto his fingers. “An’ hungry, too. Have ye got anythin’ in those pockets of yours?”

“Let me see...” Leaning over, the Doctor shoved his arm into his pocket again. “Ah – no, that’s not – yes!” He pulled out an apple, brandishing it proudly beneath Jamie’s nose. “An apple from fifteen seventy-three. Quite a year for apples.” He paused, his hand stilling, then sighed. “Not quite the romantic outing I had imagined, I’m afraid.”

“No, it’s not.” Whacking gently at the Doctor’s shoulder with the back of his hand, Jamie grinned at him. “But is it ever?”

“Just once would be nice,” the Doctor pointed out.

“Aye, ‘spose so.” Another clap of thunder rumbled over them, the sound half-blocked out by the crowns of the trees. It did not take long for the rain to follow, beginning to drip and then to pour like the thunder had split the sky open. The mushroom did not entirely cover them, and Jamie drew his knees up to his chest, ducking his head to see out from beneath their little makeshift shelter. “It’s fun, though,” he called to the Doctor over the drumming of rain on the forest floor. “Havin’ things be a wee bit messy, an’ all that.” The Doctor simply shrugged, pressing his lips together. “I don’t mind,” Jamie said, nudging his side. “Honest.”

“Oh – well, in that case -” The Doctor tipped the apple into Jamie’s hands. “You won’t mind having this for lunch instead, then.”

Fumbling to catch it, Jamie tilted it towards the Doctor in thanks before he took a bite. “It’s good,” he said, passing it back to the Doctor. “No’ your spicy rice, mind, but it’ll do.”

“Yes.” The Doctor smiled around his own bite. “Yes, it will.”


End file.
